Washington, DC, June 8, 2006--The National Retail Federation today expressed disappointment over the Senate’s vote against further consideration of legislation that would make repeal of the federal estate tax permanent. NRF counted this morning’s procedural vote as a key vote in NRF’s annual ranking of lawmakers on issues important to the retail industry.
“While we respect senators’ differences of opinion, it is extremely frustrating that the Senate has voted to not even debate an issue as important as the estate tax,” NRF senior vice president for government relations Steve Pfister said. “The Senate is in a state of gridlock where partisanship is repeatedly being placed ahead of public policy. This is the second time in less than a month where an issue vitally important to small business has been set aside because the Senate could not even agree to debate the merits of the issue. If estate tax repeal or Small Business Health Plans are voted down on their merits, then that is the will of the Senate. But votes against even considering these proposals are not votes in the public interest.”
The Senate this morning voted 57-41 to cut off debate and move forward on consideration of H.R. 8, the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005. But the procedural “cloture” vote needed 60 votes to pass, meaning that no further action to actually pass the bill was able to take place.
The action was similar to a May 11 vote when the Senate voted 55-43 to move forward on Small Business Health Plan legislation. As with the estate tax, the vote was on a cloture motion and needed 60 votes to pass.
Had today’s motion received the 60 votes required, the Senate would have taken up H.R. 8, a bill passed by the House in 2005 that would allow the estate tax to continue to be phased out until repeal is complete in 2010, and then make the repeal permanent.
“The estate tax is a punitive measure that is devastating to family-owned businesses,” Pfister said. “Families are often forced to liquidate a business upon the death of a family member in order to pay this extraordinarily high tax. Congress took a great step forward when it voted in 2001 to phase out this counterproductive tax. But the progress made in this area would be lost if this tax is allowed to return to its original onerous level just one year after the phase-out is complete.”
The estate tax is being phased out as part of a $1.35 trillion tax relief package signed into law by President Bush in 2001. The full elimination of the tax becomes complete in 2010 but would last only one year, with the tax returning to the 2001 rate in 2011. The estate tax phase-out was one of several provisions of the 2001 law passed on a temporary basis. Lawmakers indicated at the time, however, that they hoped to make the cuts permanent in the future, and Bush has repeatedly called for the cuts to be made permanent.
